Tag: goals

Last night I took a side-by-side comparison shot of myself for the #100daychallenge I’m doing with my gym girls. So far, we’ve been motivating one another with inspirational phrases, encouraging each other to hit the gym, sharing recipes/photos of meals, dishing on workout stats, etc.

I haven’t taken measurements and wish I had, but my clothes definitely are fitting better and the scale is down a total of 7.4 pounds now — so that’s pretty good; that means 0.4 below pre-preg now, woot!

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Since recommitting to healthier eating and more exercise on March 31, my pants fit better, I feel stronger and leaner, and I’m down 6.6 pounds. On my frame, that’s pretty nice. Not noticeable to the eye or enough to drop a size, but still noteworthy.

As of my last weigh-in, I’m 0.4 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight … and that feels great. I gained 34 pounds this time vs. 25 last time. So nine months on; 6.5 months off (whereas last time, four months off). Continue reading “progress …”→

My friend (and trainer/Zumba instructor!) created a private Facebook group called the 100 Day Challenge: 100 Days to a Healthier Me. We’re encouraged to post recipes, workouts of the day, photos of us in workout gear, motivational phrases, etc. It’s a great idea and I’m 100% behind it. It’s essentially a three-month-commitment to health and wellness.

And the timing is perfect. As you know, I’ve recently recommitted myself to moving a little more and eating a little better. Nothing earth-shattering or monumental: no over-exercising, no restricting … just awareness and and accountability. Continue reading “100 Day Challenge”→

I hate hashtags. I use them on Instagram because, well, that’s what all the cool kids do … but on the whole, I loathe them — especially made-up ones that are twenty words long and clogging up my newsfeed on Facebook.

I have often equated them to that line in Mean Girls when Rachel McAdams’ character (Regina George) says to Lacey Chabert’s character (Gretchen Wieners): “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s not going to happen.”

In all the social spaces these days, people are inventing hashtags, seemingly in the hope their clever words (i.e., their “fetch”) will get picked up. Some are downright stupid and long and irritating … and some make perfect sense.

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It’s not everyday a Hollywood hottie says something that actually resonates with me and is relevant to my blog, but upon Googling my new celeb crush (Ryan Reynolds) I found this awesome quote he said in Men’s Health not too long ago.

“Whether he’s talking about inhabiting characters or running races, there’s a theme that arises frequently in Reynolds’s conversations: goals versus expectations. He has plenty of goals, both professional and personal, but as much as he can, he tries to avoid having expectations — simply assuming that something is going to happen without doing the work.”

“When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment,” Reynolds says. “I didn’t expect to finish the marathon; I trained to finish it.”

“I didn’t expect to finish the marathon; I trained to finish it.”

How I love that quote, and I’m going to take it a little further. All too often, I feel my expectations (whether worked for or not) are unmet and that I’ve “failed” as a result. Continue reading “Goals vs. Expectations”→

Image source: http://www.wsaq.netAs Americans, it’s part of our collective conscience to never be satisfied, to always want more.

Generalizing, we’re taught from a young age to always be our best: to get As; to win the football game; to bring home the Gold. We’re encouraged to make money; to buy a nice home.

We’re a very driven people, and you could argue that is what has led to our success as a nation (and also to our potential downfall in the eyes of much of the world, but I’ll save that for a politically-charged commentary elsewhere!)

But when it comes to weight loss and disordered eating issues, “the American way” is truly a double-edged sword, at least in my eyes. Our psyche tells us to keep going, lose more weight…but doesn’t that seek to fuel this kind of behavior?

What if we looked in the mirror at our hips with maybe just a little extra padding, or our thighs that sort of rub together, and didn’t hate on ourselves … but rather saw past physical presence and looked back satisfied on our accomplishments?

Would we be going against the grain, by embracing the present versus striving for something better in the future?